Fwd: How to optimize your site for a global audience

The number of worldwide internet users is 3.3 billion. Are you making it easy enough for them to use your site?

In the latest Learn to Code With Me guest post, Christina from Day Translations lets us in on why (and how) you should be playing the numbers game and making sure your website is globally accessible.

Click here to read this post.

Here's a snapshot of what Christina says are the top things to incorporate to make sure everybody has a good time on your site:

  • Minimalism. I'm a big fan of keeping things simple, and, turns out, it makes website localization so much easier in the long run.
  • Unicode. This makes sure your site's compatible with just about any language, regardless of the script being used.
  • Hreflang tags. There are a few different ways you can use them, but the main thing is you're letting Google know when one page is a translation of another.
  • Space. White space definitely looks good, but it also comes in handy when translated text takes up more room than the original. Nobody wants a broken page layout.
  • Translation. This is the obvious one, and you've got two options: translation plugins or human translation. (Guess which one mistranslates way more often!)
  • Site speed. Not all regions have lightning fast internet connections, so design with limited bandwidth in mind. Added bonus: lower page load times = better search rankings.

See the full article here.

Have a great rest of the week =)

Laurence

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